Recession perhaps not over

Last month, as the unemployment rate took a reprieve from its upward spike, I speculated that the recession might be over. Friday's release of the August unemployment rate showed a resumption of the upward spike, suggesting that the end of the recession may be yet to come.

Here's a graph of the official unemployment rate over the past ten years. Gray bars indicate recessions:


Here's a graph of the official monthly job loss numbers during this recession:


For conspiracy theorists who don't trust the government, here are the job loss numbers from the private ADP Employment Report. Notice that ADP measures job losses in August as being roughly 50% higher than the BLS numbers: